"Marketing is Brainwashing Propaganda"

Many consumers have the misconception that the marketing they are exposed to from companies is just to get them to buy stuff. However, that is not the case in many situations. Yes, advertising is an element of marketing and in many cases it does have the goal of having consumers buy products or services. But, marketing is not advertising, nor is the goal of marketing to just get people to buy things. Marketing, and advertising by extension, has so many purposes, but lying to or confusing the consumer should never be one of them. For example, one goal of marketing can be to do market research and better understand consumers. Another goal may be to get consumers awareness or engagement with the company. Marketing is about starting productive conversations about a product, that means discussing both pros and cons. Effective marketing will never pretend the product does something it doesn’t. McDonalds has never marketed their products to be nutritious, but once consumers demanded a more nutritious product McDonalds complied and changed their process, providing a product that filled consumers new requirements, and marketing it as such. Marketing creates the opportunity for consumers to help to create the products they want to see on the market. Especially in the age of social media and digital marketing, customers have a direct link to companies that encourages them to suggest what they want to see more of. On another side, never has it been so easy to call out “propaganda-like” marketing, and give firms with this negative approach a bad reputation, making an approach like this stereotype suggests not only unethical, but also wildly ineffective. Bottom-line: in the world of buying and selling, the customer has all the power, and so effective marketing does not simply tell consumers whatever they want to hear, but rather put their insights into the product and show them everything they want to see. Marketing isn’t propaganda, it’s a creative action of the consumer’s input.

(Written by Christina Onyshchenko, Edited by Zoe Papakonstantino).